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May 30th, 1915 






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DEDICATION 



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May 30th, 1915 




PRESS OF 

THE BRANDOW PRINTINQ CO. 

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^ Contents 

1. Extract from the Minutes of Vestry Meeting. 

2. Letter of Mrs. William Gorham Rice. 

3. Letter of Dr. John M. Clarke, State Geologist. 

4. List of Donors. 

5. Service of Dedication pronounced by the Rev. Charles 

C. Harriman, Rector of St. Peter's Church, 
Albany. 

6. Address by the Hon. Joseph W. Stevens, 

Mayor of Albany. 

7. Address by James Austin Holden, Esq., 

State Historian. 

8. Address by Dr. John H. Finley, 

State Commissioner of Education. 

9. Address by the Rev. Walton W. Battershall, D.D., 

Rector Emeritus of St. Peter's Church, Albany. 



Illustrations 

1. The First St. Peter's Church, Albany. 

2. Page of the " Church Book " containing entry of 

Lord Howe's burial under date of Sept. 5th, 1758. 

3. Page of '' The Boston Gazette."— Monday, July 17, 

1758. 

4. Photograph of Tablet. 



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ST. PETER'S CHURCH BOOK 

Lord Howe Entry Sept. 5th; "To cash Rt. for ground to lay Body 
of Lord how & Pall, £5. 6.0." 




LORD HOWE'S BODY BROUGHT TO ALBANY: 
(Last Column. Third Line from Bottom.) 

"The Body of the Right Honorable Lord George Viscount Howe was brought to Albany 

last Monday " 




PHOTOGRAPH OP^ TABLET 



Extract from Minutes of the Vestry Meeting of St. 
Peter's Church, Albany, held February 6th, 1914 

" The Rector read a letter from Mrs. W. G. Rice 
proposing a memorial in the vestibule of St. Peter's 
Church to Lord Howe, whose remains are buried in a 
vault beneath the vestibule. She submitted also a draw- 
ing by Marcus T. Reynolds, Esq., and an estimate of 
the cost of such a slab of black slate. 

" On motion of Mr. Pruyn, Mrs. Rice's proposal was 
referred to the Committee on Memorials with authority 
to accept the tablet and to raise the sum specified. 

" Mr. Wadhams moved that the Clerk be requested to 
acknowledge the receipt of Mrs. Rice's letter and to 
express to her the interest and appreciation of the Vestry 
in her undertaking and to state the action of the Vestry 
at this meeting. Carried." 

Letter of Mrs. William Gorham Rice 

February 4, 1914 

To the Wardens and Vestrymen of St. Peter's Church, 
Albany, N. Y. 

Dear Sirs: 

On July 6, 1758, a column of General Abercrombie's 
army, which was marching toward Ticonderoga to meet 
the French in battle, was bewildered in the dense forest 
and, meeting with a company of French and Indians 
familiar with the country, was surprised and overcome at 
Trout Brook. The commander of this column was 
George Augustus Viscount Howe, the controlling spirit 
of the British army. In his death a hero and a man of 
supreme power of organization, as well as a generous 
and noble character, fell. 

There has been great discussion as to where Lord 
Howe was buried. Ticonderoga claims that he was 
buried near where he fell; Albany claims that he was 
buried in St. Peter's Church. 



The claims of Ticonderoga are as follows: 
On October 3, 1889, some laborers while digging a 
sewer trench in Ticonderoga found a partially decayed 
coffin and a triangular shaped stone on which was cut 
or scratched — 

MEM 

OF 

Lo Howe 

KILLED 

TROUT 

BROOK 

The town insisted the grave was Lord Howe's. Joseph 
Peterson of Ticonderoga claimed that his great-grand- 
father, who was a stonecutter, had lettered this stone. 
There are various surmises and quotations from journals 
of the period speaking of where Lord Howe's body was 
buried but so far as I can see this is all the actual proof 
in favor of the body of Lord Howe having been buried 
in Ticonderoga. 

The claims of Albany are as follows : 

1. Captain Moneypenny's letter saying " Lord Howe's 
body was taken immediately to the rear, embalmed and 
under the charge of Captain Philip Schuyler brought to 
Albany." (Spoken of in Munsell's Annals, Vol. L) 

2. The Journal of Lieutenant Samuel Thompson of 
Woburn, Mass. This says, under date of July 8: '' Post 
came from the Narrows and they brought Lord How to 
ye Fort who was slain at their landing." 

3. A copy of " The Boston News-Letter " for July 13, 
1758, a printed publication issued weekly; also a copy of 
" The Boston Gazette and Country Journal," of July 17, 
1758. Both of these papers were found by the Rev. 
Joseph Hooper in the Massachusetts Historical Society 
two years ago. In both there is the following extract 
from a letter of a gentleman in Albany to his friend in 
Boston, dated July 10, 1758: " The body of the Right 
Honorable Lord George Viscount Howe was brought to 
Albany last Monday." A portion of these same letters 

8 



describes the skirmish at Trout Brook and gives other 
news of importance from Albany. 

4. The Church Book of St. Peter's, Albany, containing 
the Treasurer's Accounts, records of election and a pew 
list, in which is the following entry: 

*' 1758, Sept. 5th. To cash Rt. for ground to lay 
Body of Lord how & Pall, £5,6s-0" 

5. Chancellor Kent's address in 1828 to the New 
York Historical Society, when, in speaking of General 
Philip Schuyler, he said: ** He was with Lord Howe 
when he fell . . . and he was appointed {as he himself 
informed me) to convey the body to Albany, where he 
was buried with appropriate solemnities in the Episcopal 
Church." 

6. General Abercrombie's letter to William Pitt after 
the Battle of Ticonderoga, contains the following, refer- 
ring to Lord Howe's death: '* I caused his body to be 
taken from the field of battle and sent to Albany, with a 
design to have had it embalmed and sent home, if his 
Lordship's relatives had approved of it. But the weather 
being very hot. Brig"" Stanwix was obliged to order it 
to be buried." — in Albany, of course. See '* Corres- 
pondence of William Pitt with Colonial Governors," 
(Macmillan Company, 1906); also ''America and West 
Indies," Vol. 87, pp. 297-302. This letter is in the 
Public Record Office in London, where there is much 
material as yet untouched by American historians. 

**1« «!• «t* m^ ^ ^M mSs 4^ 

^^ ^^ *^ ^» ^^ *p ^^ r^ 

It seems, therefore, positive to me that the body of 
Lord Howe was brought to Albany and was buried in 
St. Peter's Church. 

In 1759 the General Court of the Province of Massa- 
chusetts Bay voted the sum of £250 ($1250) to be laid 
out in erecting a monument to the memory of Lord Howe. 
This monument was placed in Westminster Abbey, is 
very large and impressive and stands on the left hand 
side of the great door of the nave directly after you enter 
the Abbey. Does it not seem proper, if such a monu- 



ment stands to the memory of Lord Howe in Westminster 
Abbey, that some tablet should mark the place where 
his body lies ? 

My purpose in this letter is to ask your consent to the 
erection of such a tablet. A few people, mostly members 
of St. Peter's Church, have become interested with me 
in this undertaking and Mr. Marcus Reynolds has made 
a beautiful drawing for a slate tablet, giving his services 
as architect as his offering to the undertaking. I should 
be greatly pleased if you will look over this drawing 
which the Reverend Mr. Harriman now has with him for 
your consideration. Mr. Reynolds proposes that the 
tablet should be placed — as tablets were placed in the time 
of Lord Howe — in the floor of the vestibule of the church 
almost directly above the spot where the coffin lies. The 
arms of Lord Howe which are drawn at the head of the 
design have been obtained through an English friend 
from the present Lord Howe, who has been so kind as 
to write the Heralds' College in London for them. His 
letter is inclosed. If you will give permission to have 
some tablet to mark the resting place of Lord Howe's 
body placed in the vestibule of the church, subject, in 
design, to your approval, I shall be proud to do my 
utmost to accomplish its erection. One hundred dollars 
has already been subscribed for this purpose in four gifts 
of twenty-five dollars each, so a good beginning has 
been made. 

Hoping that this undertaking may have your warm 
approval and interest, believe me. 

Truly yours, 
Harriet Langdon Pruyn Rice 

P. S. — Lord Arthur Browne, a descendant of the branch 
of the Howe family to which Lord Howe and his younger 
brother, who figured in the revolution period, belonged, 
wrote our State Historian, Mr. Holden, recently that: 
" practically all the Howe papers, despatches, etc., were 
destroyed about one hundred years ago in a fire in which 
the library at Westport House (Ireland) was burned 
down." 

10 



Letter of Dr. John M. Clarke, State Geologist 

State of New York, 
Education Department, 
Science Division. 

Director's Office, 

Education Bldg., 
Albany, Feb. 16, 1914 
Mrs. William Gorham Rice, 
Albany, N. Y.: 

Dear Mrs. Rice : 

Some years ago I was given the opportunity to examine 
closely the Lord Howe burial stone then (and still, I 
presume) preserved in the Black Watch Library at 
Ticonderoga. My desire was to scrutinize the inscrip- 
tion and ascertain how far the surfaces of the engraved 
letters had shown the effect of weathering. 

The slab is a dark limestone from the bed rock, at no 
great distance from Ticonderoga. It was, I believe, ex- 
cavated from the soil in the village about 25 years ago. 
Presumably placed above ground in 1758, it should have 
been exposed to the action of the weathering agencies 
equally potent above and below the soil, for a period of 
about 130 years. 

My examination indicated to my own satisfaction 

(1) That there had been no apparent lining or scratch- 
ing of the letters since the exhumation of the stone; 

(2) That the surfaces of the roughly cut letters did 
not indicate the degree of weathering that should have 
taken place on such a rock so situated during a period 
of 130 years. 

In my judgment, therefore, the lettering upon the 
stone, from the intimate evidence borne upon its face, 
is not of the date of 1758, and while I should not venture 
to fix an approximate period for such weathering changes 
as have occurred on the inscription, I believe it to be of 
a much more recent date than 1758. 

Very faithfully yours, 

John M. Clarke, 

State Geologist 
II 



Donors of Tablet 

Mrs. John V. L. Pruyn, Mr. and Mrs. Robert C. 
Pruyn, Justice and Mrs. William P. Rudd, Mr. Harmon 
Pumpelly Read, Mrs. William H. Sage, Mr. and Mrs. 
Samuel W. Brown, Mr. and Mrs. John T. Perry, Mrs. 
Charles S. Hamlin, Mrs. Philip Ten Eyck, Miss Caroline 
Ten Eyck, Rev. Dr. Walton W. Battershall, Mr. Marcus 
T. Reynolds, Mr. and Mrs. W. G. Rice, Mr. Jesse W. 
Potts, Mrs. Abraham Lansing, Mr. Luther H. Tucker, 
Mrs. Russell Headley, Mr. Frederick W. Tillinghast, Mr. 
James W. Cox, Dr. John H. Finley, Dr. Thomas F. 
Finegan, Dr. Augustus S. Downing, Dr. Charles F. 
Wheelock, Dr. John M. Clarke, Mrs. W. H. Griffith, 
Mr. W. G. Rice, Jr., The James Fenimore Cooper Family, 
The Augustus H. Walsh Family, Mr. Frederick Rocke, 
Col. Charles K. Winne, Mrs. George Douglas Miller, St. 
George's Benevolent Society of Albany, Mrs. Richardson 
Tardif, Perc6, P. Q.; Rev. A. R. Warren, Cape Cove, 
P. Q., Mr. Samuel W. BayHs, Montreal. 



12 



The Service of Dedication 

Evening prayer for Trinity Sunday having been said, 
the following Office of Dedication was pronounced in the 
■Porch of the Church by the Reverend Charles C. Harriman, 
Rector of St. Peter's Church, attended by the Reverend 
Walton W. Batter shall, D.D., Rector Emeritus of St. 
Peter's Church, the Reverend Joseph Hooper, Historian 
of St. Peter's Church, the Reverend Paul H. Birdsall, 
Rector of Grace Church, Albany, the Reverend William 
Francis Mayo, O.H.C., and the Reverend Raymond H. 
Kendrick, Rector of St. Martin's Church, New Bedford, 
Massachusetts. 



In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, 

Amen. 

Almighty God, Who hast called us out of darkness into Thy marvellous 
light, mercifully accept our service, and graciously receive at our hands 
this memorial tablet, which we offer and dedicate to Thee in memory of 
George Augustus Viscount Howe, and in honor of Him, the brightness of 
Thy glory, whom Thou hast given to be a light to lighten the Gentiles, 
even Jesus Christ our Lord, Who with Thee and the Holy Ghost art one 
God, world without end. Amen. 



Almighty God, with Whom do live the spirits of those who depart 
hence in the Lord, and with Whom the souls of the faithfiil, after they 
are delivered from the burden of the flesh, are in joy and felicity; We 
give Thee hearty thanks for the good examples of all those Thy servants, 
who, having finished their course in faith, do now rest from their labours. 
And we beseech Thee, that we, with all those who are departed in the 
true faith of Thy Holy Name, may have our perfect consummation and 
bliss, both in body and soul, in Thy eternal and everlasting glory; through 
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 



The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the 
fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore. Amen. 

13 



The clergy having returned to the chancel, the following 
addresses were made: 

Address 

By The Hon. Joseph W. Stevens 

Mayor of Albany 

I am deeply conscious of the honor which is mine 
this afternoon in being chosen as the official represen- 
tative of the whole city of Albany upon this occasion. 

The thought which prompted the invitation which was 
extended to me was indeed a most happy one. It testi- 
fies to the feeling, which seems to be quite general through- 
out our city, that whatever of moment concerns St. 
Peter's Church is of interest to our whole municipality. 

It has been my experience that it is not possible for 
an Albanian who has journeyed many miles away from 
home to speak or even to think of this beloved old city 
without saying a word about, or giving a thought to, 
this beautiful edifice on State Street, which stands like 
many others throughout the length and breadth of our 
land as a witness to our belief as a people in the existence 
of a Supreme Being, the worship of Whom ennobles our 
conduct and gives us spiritual peace. 

In an occasion such as this one, for which we are gath- 
ered here today, all Albany takes an interest, because it 
takes place under the auspices of this historic parish of 
St. Peter's, the " Mother Parish of the Diocese," if you 
please, and carries our thoughts back to the strenuous 
days of the early colonies, when men of true worth 
endured untold hardships and even death in doing the 
great work preparatory to laying the foundation for the 
American civiHzation whose blessings we now enjoy. 

The man whom we honor in memory on this occasion 
represented a distinct type. Lord Howe was a soldier 
and gentleman, one of the most popular men of the 
Colonial period. It is eminently fitting that within this 
dear old St. Peter's, which covers his remains and which, 
in so many ways, is a connecting Hnk in the chain which 

14 



connects us with our city's and country's early days, 
of which we are so justly proud, this memorial tablet 
should be placed and now dedicated. 

On behalf of the people of Albany I congratulate those 
responsible for this historic memorial. 

I congratulate particularly the people of St. Peter's, 
for as time passes, and the historians pen the story of 
these days in which we live, this service will, in my 
judgment, be accorded a prominent place as an added 
event in the historic background of Albany, in which 
this church and the people of this parish have played 
so conspicuous a part. 

St. Peter's Church belongs to all Albany. This happy 
event, like many which have preceded it, extends the 
usefulness of the church beyond parish lines and again 
calls the attention of the public to the historic atmos- 
phere which surrounds it. 

I thank the Rector and the Vestry and the Wardens 
of St. Peter's Church for the high privilege of partici- 
pating in this small way in this interesting ceremony. 



15 



Add 



ress 



By James Austin Holden, Esq., 

State Historian 

Although for years a vestryman, or warden, of the 
church historic in my own city, it has never until now 
been my privilege to address a congregation in a formal 
manner. I shall, perhaps, be pardoned therefore by the 
clergy, if I borrow for this impressive occasion a text 
upon which to hang the little I have to say. It is to 
be found in the Gospel according to St. Mark, eighth 
chapter and eighteenth verse, and is as follows: " Hav- 
ing eyes, see ye not ? And having ears, hear ye not ? 
And do ye not remember ? " 

This is a day sacred to memory, to remembrance, to 
the past. It is a half century anniversary on which we 
acknowledge with loving thoughts, with the beautiful 
springtide flowers, with grateful thanks, our debt to the 
boys and young men who preserved, by their valor, 
their sacrifices, their wounds, their lives, a united country 
to us, in those bitter, destructive days of the Civil War 
of 1861-1865, whose closing era this present half circle of 
the century's whole marks on the Calendar of Time. 
As this then is Memorial Day in state and nation, it is 
meet and right that we should gather this afternoon in 
this sacred building, whose very site is so full of historical 
importance, to honor a man, who, cut down in the flower 
of his promising youth, in an unknown wilderness, far 
from his native land, was nevertheless so great, so fine, 
so grand and noble, that for over a century and a half 
of the world's most fateful history, his name has lingered 
on men's tongues, and in men's minds, like that of an 
Admirable Crichton, as a paladin worthy of all men's 
emulation and remembrance. 

But " I came to bury Caesar, not to praise him." In 
the brief time allotted to me in these exercises I cannot 
attempt to give in extenso the proofs '' for the belief 

i6 



that is in me " that under this sacred pile rest the remains 
of Lord Howe. I know it is so, for I have proved it to 
be so.i Up to that October day of 1889, when a laborer, 
in digging a trench for the sewer from the Academy in 
Ticonderoga, unearthed some bones and a stone on which 
were the rudely scratched words, '' In Mem. of Lo. 
Howe Killed Trout Brook," there had never been a 
question about it. 2 In spite of that find, which made 
so great a sensation then, I believe that the remains 
of Lord Howe, killed in the first skirmish at Ticonderoga, 
July 6, 1758, are at rest in the shadow of St. Peter's 
tower in this city. When this matter first came out in 
1889, as a newspaper editor, I had occasion to investigate 
it, and, in common with local historians of Northern 
New York at the time, decided that, while possible, it 
was not probable, that the Ticonderoga remains could 
really be those of Lord Howe.' In 1911, it was my 
pleasure, in preparing a paper for the New York State 
Historical Association, to unearth historical evidence 
in Mss. in the shape of letters to the family from a staff 
officer with Abercrombie, throwing new light on the real 
burial place of Lord Howe. The letters had been fur- 
nished by a branch of the family to which the deceased 
viscount belonged, now located in Westport, Ireland, to 
S. H. P. Pell, owner of Fort Ticonderoga, who sent the 
copies to me. These proved beyond the perad venture 
of a doubt to reasoning men, that he was positively 
buried in Albany and not elsewhere.* 

It has, however, been somewhat of a disappointment 

1 See Proceedings New York State Historical Association, Vol. X, pp. 
259-366, (Glens Falls, 1911). Also separate Monograph by J. A. Holden, 
taken from above, and on file in vestry rooms of St. Peter's Church. 

2 See " The Burial of Lord Viscount Howe," by Edward J. Owen, 
A.M., read before Albany Institute, January 3, 1893; also Vol. X, supra, 
" Lord Howe," by Frank B. Wickes, pp. 238-58, for Ticonderoga claim. 

3 Ticonderoga Sentinel, Thursday, Oct. 10, 1889; Judge James Gibson 
in Salem Review Press, Friday, Oct. 18, 1889; Albany and Troy and 
Whitehall papers of contemporary issue; J. A. Holden in Glens Falls 
Daily Times, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 1889. 

*A letter from Lord Arthur Browne, January 17, 1911, vouching for 
accuracy and authenticity of the Moneypenny letters is on file with my 
Mss. relating to Lord Howe, see Vol. X, p. 271. 

17 



to me, as it must have been to the " beloved disciple," 
to have to say to some true but mistaken friends, Verily, 
verily, I say unto thee, we speak what we do know, and 
bear witness of that we have seen; and ye receive not 
our witness." In the preparation of my paper four 
years ago, at my request, the Archives of London were 
searched, England's official manuscripts inspected, Amer- 
ican libraries ransacked, members of the Howe family 
written to, and the sum total of all this work was em- 
bodied in my article, '* The Real Burial Place of George 
Augustus Lord Viscount Howe," in Vol. X of the Pro- 
ceedings of the New York State Historical Association, ^ 
and latterly epitomised in your own publication, '' The 
Messenger," of April, 1914, which my hearers can con- 
sult if interested in the steps by which I arrived at my 
conclusions. Very, very briefly the story as I have built 
it up on the solid foundation of contemporary written 
and printed evidence, is as follows: 

At the head of his troops, in the disastrous expedition 
of Abercrombie against Ticonderoga, at two o'clock on 
July 6, 1758, Lord Howe was shot in the preUminary 
skirmish with the French, and instantly killed. Captain 
Alexander Moneypenny, Lord Howe's aide-de-camp, and 
personal and intimate friend, took charge of the remains. « 
Dr. Rea, the army surgeon, present at his death, writes 
in his journal that " Lord How was Brou't in and 
imbalmed." ' 

General Abercrombie, in the real official report of the 
expedition filed in London, and differing from that pub- 
lished in our own New York State work. Vol. X, of the 
Colonial Document series, in gazettes and magazines of 
the day, says that he " Caused the body to be taken 
ojff the field and sent to Albany." » 

^Vol. X, whenever referred to in the footnotes, means this work. 

6 Vol. X, p. 272. 

'F. M. Ray ed. Journal Dr. Caleb Rea, pp. 24-26. (Salem, Mass., 
1881.) 

® See copy of this despatch in Gertrude Selwyn Kimball ed. Corres- 
pondence of William Pitt, Vol. I, p. 297 (Macmillan Co., 1906), also copied 
and sent me by F. B. Richards, Secretary New York State Historical 
Association, from original Mss. in Public Record Office, London, in 1910. 
Also, see Vol. X, N. Y. S. H. A. Proceedings, pp. 309-313. 

i8 



A solitary boat was detached from service, and returned 
with the body in sorrow and gloom to the head of the 
lake, where it was met by the Colonial forces, and its 
arrival noted by a Colonial lieutenant in his journal.' 
Under date of July 8, he writes: '' Post came from the 
Narrows; and they brought Lord How to ye Fort, who 
was slain at their landing." From Lake George the body 
was conveyed by soldier bearers, one of whom bore 
witness of this act to his descendants, to Fort Edward, ^o 
where its arrival was mentioned in a letter of Chief 
Justice Shippen of Philadelphia to his father, at Lan- 
caster under date of July 20, 1758.ii Then two Boston 
papers printed a letter from Albany that announced the 
arrival of the body in this city on Monday, July 10. 12 
From Lake George to Albany, the remains were accom- 
panied by Philip Schuyler, Lord Howe's intimate and 
personal Colonial friend as he in later years informed the 
able and learned Chancellor Kent. ^ 3 Messengers had 
gone on ahead announcing the death of Lord Howe to 
the Schuyler family and probably conveying to a Dr. 
Huck, then in Albany, according to a letter from Captain 
Moneypenny, instructions of the Captain as to the dis- 
position of the body.i* The weather being very hot on 
its arrival in this city. Brigadier General Stanwix, then 
in command of the forces here, " was obliged to order 
it to be buried. "I'i 

In the records of this church still preserved are two 
items which of themselves should have settled the ques- 
tion forever. One is the item so well known to all of 
you under the date of September 5, 1758, ''To cash Rt. 

• W. R. Cutter ed. Diary Lieut. Samuel Thompson of Woburn, Mass. , 
p. 9. (Boston, 1896.) 

1° Narrative, Hon. Grenville M. Ingalsbe, ex-president New York State 
Historical Association. 

** [Thomas Balch.] Letters and papers relating to . , . the Pro- 
vincial History of Pennsylvania, pp. 126-27. (Philadelphia, 1855.) 

12 Boston News Letter of Thursday, July 13, 1758, and Boston Gazette 
of Monday, July 17, 1758. See photographs in Vol. X, op. pp: 269, 284. 

" Address of Chancellor James Kent, president, in Collections, New 
York Historical Society, 2nd series, Vol. I, pp. 19-20. (New York, 1841.) 

" Vol. X, p. 274. 

" Abercrombie's despatch, in London Record Office, in A. and W. I. 
Vol. 87. 

19 



for ground to lay Body of Lord how & Pall, 5-6-0. "i^ 
It is safe to assume, that under the auspices of the 
Schuyler family there was, even if no information exists 
concerning it, a notable funeral. This took place, of 
course, in the original English church of 1715, standing 
in the center of State Street, opposite Chapel. Here 
the body remained until 1802, when the second St. Peter's, 
on the present site, and built partly on a bastion of Old 
Fort Frederick, was erected. At this time, we know on 
the authority of Elkanah Watson, a most reliable his- 
torian of those days, that Lord Howe's body was exhumed 
and the bones and cerements handled by him and an 
assistant, Henry Cuyler of Greenbush, before they re- 
solved themselves into dust.^^ From other authorities 
we learn that the remains of Lord Howe had undoubtedly 
been taken up and been buried with the twenty-four other 
bodies found in the church of 1715, "in a trench along 
the north foundation wall " of the church of 1802. When 
the present edifice was erected in 1859, the remains which 
had been placed along the north wall and which were 
at this time again uncovered, were once more removed, ^^ 
this time to the receptacle under the vestibule of the 
present church, and somewhere near the spot where 
today is embedded the beautiful memorial tablet in 
honor of Lord Howe, which by the generosity of Albanians, 
we are enabled here and now to dedicate with solemn 
religious and civil observance. 

In passing I may say that at the time I prepared my 
original paper, I had no knowledge of, or acquaintance- 
ship with, the investigations and conclusions of the Rev. 
Joseph Hooper. i» All that came later, when I was finishing 

^^ Joseph Hooper, History of St. Peter's Church, op. p. 960. See Vol. 
X, p. 316, for second document, " Receipt of Sexton for removal of six- 
teen bodies etc." 

" W. C. Watson, History of Essex County, pp. 87-88. (Albany, 1869.) 
Munsell's Collections, History of Albany, Vol. I, p. 445. Joseph Hooper's 
address before the Albany Institute, Vol. X, pp. 315-16. 

^* Albany Journal, March 30, 1859. (A copy of this issue may be found 
in the Journal file for that year in the State Library.) 

^^ Rev. Joseph Hooper, Monograph, " The Burial-Place of the Hon. 
George Augustus Scrope," (Lord Viscount Howe) read before Albany 
Institute, Oct. 5, 1897. Also his History of St. Peter's Church. See 
Index for Lord Howe. 

20 



my researches. It is usually conceded that when two 
independent historical investigators, even though they 
uncover the same or similar facts, or lines of evidence, 
arrive at the same conclusions, from different angles, 
that the case is proved. 

I am glad that the good and reverend historian is 
here today, so we may say, as was said of St. John the 
Divine, " This is the disciple that beareth witness of 
these things, and wrote these things; and we know that 
his witness is true." 

But what of Ticonderoga's contention that she still 
possesses the real body? 20 It is true that Ticonderoga 
has some perfectly good bones of a skeleton and a rock 
with an apparently appropriate inscription. But it is 
also unfortunately true that on that rock there is hardly 
one single significant key word that proves it contem- 
porary or one that would probably have been used by 
any soldier of that day. For instance take the words 
" Mem. of," In the Union Cemetery, between Fort 
Edward and Hudson Falls, where is also the grave of 
that lamented martyr, Jane McCrea, is the weather- 
beaten, crumbling headstone, of red granite, of Duncan 
Campbell of the Black Watch, mortally wounded in the 
attack on the Ticonderoga breastworks two days later. 
Strangely enough, this does not read " In Mem. Duncan 
Campbell," like the Howe stone, but " Here Lyes the 
body of Duncan Campbell," the usual and regular be- 
ginning of an epitaph in those days. 21 The other came 
into use some years later. 

Again, the word " Lo " for Lord is so rare in old manu- 
scripts, as up to 1911, when I prepared my paper for 
publication, never to have been found in documents on 
this side of the water, and it is practically unknown to 

^° For my conclusions as to the Ticonderoga claim as a whole see my 
article in Vol. X, pp. 287-307. Also conclusions Dr. John M. Clarke, 
State Geologist, in Albany Knickerbocker Press, May 30, 1915, as to con- 
temporary value of stone. Also Hooper's views in History of St. Peter's 
Church, pp. 519-26 and Vol. X, pp. 313-21. 

*^ R. O. Bascom, " The Fort Edward Book," Legend of Duncan Camp- 
bell, pp. 80-88. (Fort Edward, 1903.) 

21 



our archivists. The name '' Howe " was usually spelled 
" How " by Colonials, and it was claimed the stone was 
cut on the spot by a Colonial soldier. The words, "At 
Trout brook," alone condemn the stone as unbelievable, 
for the only cotemporary topographical sketch found 
by my searcher in London showed no such name in 
existence in 1758.22 On the French maps it is called 
** Birney " or " Bernets," on the English maps it is 
unnamed. The noted ranger, Robert Rogers, who would 
have known its name, if any one, called it the " River 
that ran into the Falls." The name Trout Brook came 
long, long afterward. 2 3 To the claims of the discredit ors 
of the Albany interment, we may well apply the old 
Latin maxim, ''Falsum in uno, falsum in omnibus,'' and 
dismiss the topic, until some more convincing evidence 
than theirs is brought to light. 

Not in my recollection of the matter has any real 
proof been advanced of a rightful claim to Lord Howe's 
place of sepulture by any place except Albany, or in 
any place except the original English church, later St. 
Peter's. The claim of Ticonderoga is so utterly unsup- 
ported by facts, that, while the sincerity of its adherents 
is not to be questioned, their refusal to accept written 
proofs, to accept the evidence of their own eyes as to 
official documents, and their reluctance to concede any 
possibility of a mistake in identification, and their in- 
ability to explain reasonably why the body they have, if 
that of Lord Howe, should have been buried half a mile 
or so from the place Howe was killed, and admittedly 
well within the lines of the enemy, 24 place them in the 

22 Vol. X, pp. 291-92. 

23 In his Centennial address at Ticonderoga in 1864, Joseph Cook, the 
noted writer, lecturer and historian, called it " Berney River." See 
reprint, by Ticonderoga Historical Society, pp. 66-67. (Albany, 1909.) 

2* One of the strong supporters of the Ticonderoga burial wrote me, 
Nov. 3, 1910: " The ' Lord Howe ' question is a curious one; the stone 
looks real, but site curious. The Albany record of cost of burial seems 
positive, but then, why no inscription ? " Certainly the site is not only 
a curious one, but all the circumstances connected with it just as curious. 

22 



class referred to in the parable of Lazarus and Dives, 
who, '' even if one rose from the dead," would not 
believe. 

Till new documentary evidence, then, can be produced, 
that it is not so, we may rest assured, that, under the 
pavement in this vestibule of St. Peter's, Albany, reposes 
all that remains on earth of the lamented, heroic and 
well beloved idol of his day and generation, George 
Augustus, Lord Viscount Howe. 

As I have already said, this is the day peculiarly 
sacred to the memory of our Country's heroic dead. 
Across the seas, Europe, as in 1758, is once more in 
the bloody throes of a universal war. Once more, as 
in 1758, our Mother Country is in deadly grapple with 
her enemies, and her sons on " the far flung battle lines," 
are dying in thousands for their ruler and country, for 
democracy, and the world's progress along the lines of 
sanity and safety. 

Today, as we commemorate our own loved and lost 
ones, let us here and now, in this, among the oldest of 
our country's municipalities, as we dedicate this beautiful 
tablet to the noblest British soldier of his time, pause a 
moment, and symbolically lay upon his grave for all the 
dead who have died for their country and mankind, a 
wreath in which we have intertwined the aloes of grief, 
the balm of sympathy, the rosemary of remembrance, 
the pansies of thought, the sweet liHes of the valley for 
recollection, and the amaranth of our love everlasting. 

Among the ancients it was believed the departed of 
this earth walked abroad in great meadows of yellow 
asphodel, where they drank the waters of oblivion. 
Today, in whatsoever fragrant fields of Christian immor- 
tality our hero walks, he must know, that, though his 
work in life is done, there will, so long as time remains, 
in old St. Peter's, in older Albany, as well as in ancient 
Westminster Abbey, in London, be a permanent and 
enduring reminder, that, in the days when manhood 

23 



counted much, he in this Province's estimation and that 
of her sister Massachusetts, towered above his fellows 
so high that there was none to equal him. 

" Soldier rest ! thy warfare o'er, 
Dream of fighting fields no more : 
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking, 
Morn of toil, nor night of waking." 



24 



Address 

By Dr. John H. Finley 

State Commissioner of Education 

When thousands are every day dying in battle; when 
hundreds of thousands are perishing in a few months 
from the wounds and exposure and sickness of war; 
when milHons are going about in agony or anxiety over 
their dead or missing; when news of adorable faiths and 
valors are being brought almost hourly from conflicts 
in air, in water, on earth or in the trenches under the 
earth, it seems almost a travesty upon these losses, griefs 
and valors to go back a century and a half to identify 
the grave of a single officer, to rehearse his deeds and 
lament his loss. 

Why do we come ? Is it not because valor is time- 
less ? And because that which it stirs knows not seasons 
nor years ? This tablet set here is indeed a *' treasury 
of regret " that " mocks the term by time for sorrow 
set." We but proclaim, in remembering nobility so long 
ago expressed in mortal bravery, that the courage which 
is shown today will not leave the earth. And if the bones 
of this officer had been found neither here nor at Trout 
Brook, he would still have had the same timeless exist- 
ence. This, despite the fact that there is no biography 
of him. For he infused, as one who wrote of the war 
said, a '' noble ardor into every rank." And I can no 
more conceive of destructibility of spirit than I can con- 
ceive of destructibility of matter. There is only eternal 
transmutation from one life, itself immortal, into others. 
Yet in his case the spirit touched not only the men of 
the little army about him in the wilderness but the 
spirits of men remote whose words have also an immor- 
tality; as WiUiam Pitt, Oliver Goldsmith and Wolfe, 
the hero of Quebec. 

But why do we who are crying for peace in the world 
and praising thrift and industry and commending the 

25 . 



love of our fellow men, — ^why do we gather here in this 
time of hateful strife and in the very house of peace, to 
remember the virtues of this man who spent his short 
life in the wars, who knew no industry except that which 
led to a thriftlessness and a fine carelessness of his own 
life and to the destruction of others ? 

Are we consistent ? I have been repeating (and criti- 
cized for repeating) to the boys and youth of this State 
what President Wilson said of peace. (And I am dis- 
posed to keep on repeating it since I can not say it better 
myself.) But I should not utter or repeat such doctrine 
if I thought that we were to lose through its practice the 
qualities that produced such a man as this young officer. 
There is no price too dear for a people to pay for the 
breeding of such spirits as led this young democratic 
nobleman to expose his body to peril of death in the 
Ticonderoga wilderness. 

But my contention is that we do not have to look to 
war, as it has been for ages defined, to find a school for 
the culture of the martial virtues that were in the breast 
of Lord Howe and that must be kept in the breasts of 
any virile race. 

Perhaps there was no better school than this wilder- 
ness war college for the culture of such spirit in his day 
when the warfare with nature was itself such a rough, 
semi-savage struggle. But as the colleges of arts and 
science have found new disciplines for their curricula, 
so civilization has found new occupations for fostering 
chivalry, bravery, honor, justice, contempt of death and 
all the other virtues that were thought to be grown only 
of battle. 

Wars must be till we reach a static paradise (unless 
we fall back into a contented static hell), but they will 
come to be, more and more, wars that are a real test, 
not of relative skill in physical butchery, but of intel- 
lectual and moral force, — wars waged against the real 
foes of a people, of the race. And what our assembling 
here this afternoon means, as I take it, is not that we 
want to stir our youth and men to killing other youth 

26 



and men but to carry into peace the qualities that made 
men noble, even in killing other men. 

I saw at this hour yesterday, on a hill-top in the midst 
of Manhattan Island, a drama of Euripides which has 
lived two thousand years to confront us with sad and 
discouraging proofs of how little we have progressed in 
some things. There, in the midst of this modern city, 
noblest of all in its enterprise, stood a simulation of the 
walls of ancient Troy and a representation of the horrors 
of a war that was waged before history began, back in 
the dim days of myth. Before these walls given to flame, 
women were carried away to slavery of lust and a babe 
was spitted on a spear. As Hecuba said in her age-long 
anguish : 

" 'Twas strange murder for brave men." Yet she but 
hoped that that very babe would some day lead out all 
captains to ride by her tomb and himself find blessed 
death in falling fighting. 

Falling while fighting, that is, indeed, the glorious fate 
of men, yet only glorious if that fight be made of a pur- 
pose that has no vengeance in it, no prize, no lust of gain 
or wanton power, but only some fearless losing of a life 
in seeking better, happier fate for human kind. 

Cassandra from that doomed ancient city cries across 
all historic time: 

" Would ye be wise, ye cities, fly from war ! 
Yet if war come, there is a crown in death 
For her that striveth well and perisheth 
Unstained: to die in evil were a stain." 

There is a coward's '' peace at any price." It reckons 
in pennyweights and pounds, in gallons and yards, in 
broken bodies and ruined towns. But there is too a 
hero's *' peace at any price " whose measurements are 
not weight or bulk or lines of latitude or longitude but 
of the purity and strength of men's spirits. We should 
have two words for peace and two words for war. It 
is because we use an undiscriminating vocabulary of 

27 



another age that conscientious men seem to disagree. 
May America write the new definition in the world's 
lexicon ! 

I have read the controversy about the resting place 
of Lord Howe's bones, and, remembering the miracle 
wrought by the bones of an ancient prophet, I have 
wished that the test might be made here. When a Moa- 
bite killed in battle was suddenly thrust into the sepulchre 
of Elisha to get him out of the way, it is recorded in the 
Book of Kings that as he touched the bones of the prophet 
** he revived, and stood upon his feet." If we find our 
courage revived here in this place of the reputed burial 
of Lord Howe we shall know for a certainty that we 
have at any rate been in the presence of the fearless and 
magnanimous spirit of him whom the brave Wolfe him- 
self called the " noblest Englishman of his time." 



28 



Address 

By The Rev. Walton W. Battershall, D.D., 

Rector Emeritus of St. Peter's Church, Albany 

The distinguished and representative speakers who 
have preceded me have clearly set forth the justifica- 
tion and value of the action of the Rector, Wardens 
and Vestrymen of St. Peter's Church in the City of 
Albany in authorizing the placing in the vestibule of 
the church the Memorial Tablet to Lord Howe, which 
today we dedicate. 

In behalf of the Vestry and in expression of my own 
deep sense of the historic propriety of their action, I 
thank those whose public spirit and reverence for history 
have prompted them to devise and put in this sacred 
House of Memories this monument over the burial place 
of a notable soldier and Christian gentleman of the 
olden days. 

Those were days big with fate. England and France 
were fighting for the continent. Its racial and political 
destiny hung poised in a quivering balance. The suprem- 
acy of the Anglo-Saxon or the Latin on the continent 
was an open question. This question of the empire of 
the New World, as today the question of the empire of 
the Old World, was put to the arbitrament of the sword. 
Then as now, when nations fell out, they brought their 
cause into the court of last resort, where the sword 
presides. 

The world of today has inherited its yesterdays. 
Blood-stained fingers are still turning the pages of its 
history. But what of tomorrow ? We are beginning 
to see that the wolf -theory of life is a brutal and incon- 
clusive theory; that war itself is being killed by the 
horror and deadliness of its science. May God hasten 
the dawn of tomorrow. 

The French-English war of the Provincial period of 

29 



North America was war of the old type. It had its 
scenes of savagery, but it was fairly and honestly fought 
and it gave the continent to England. It committed 
to her the fashioning of the initial, formative chapters 
of American history. 

As we dedicate today the tablet that designates the 
grave of the brilliant soldier whose death, in the flower 
of his splendid youth, sent a shock through England and 
her colonies, it is fitting that we recall the tremendous 
stake for which he fought, the vast bearings and illimit- 
able results of the triumph, whose price was his life. 

You know the story. On the morning of July the 
sixth, 1758, as he led his army of 16,000 against the 
French fortress of Ticonderoga through the forest-clad 
hills that formed the chalice of the beautiful lake, named 
by the French " Lake of the Holy Sacrament," his 
column was attacked and, in the skirmish he fell, shot 
through the heart. Around the dead body of their 
gallant leader, the pride and idol of the army, the dis- 
heartened Britishmen continued and concluded the fight. 
The existing contemporaneous documents relating to 
the death of Lord Howe prove that his body was brought 
to Albany and was buried beneath the chancel of the 
first St. Peter's Church, which stood in the middle of 
State Street in the shadow of Fort Frederick, whose 
North East bastion stood on the ground from which 
springs the tower of the present St. Peter's. 

The facts of history like the facts of physical science 
are the residuum that remains in the crucible, the resi- 
duum that has survived the fires of controversy and has 
been subjected to critical scrutiny and test. The State 
Historian has told you what he has found in the crucible. 
It justifies beyond question what we have done this day 
in reverent commemoration of a beautiful and tragic 
figure in the early days of our national history, and of 
an event that illustrates the part that Albany played 
in the making of that history. 

There is another justification concerning which I must 
add a word after the words I have already spoken; the 

30 



justification, in the present stage of the world's Hfe, of 
the vocation of him, whose name we have inscribed on 
the threshold of this shrine of Christ. 

We pray for the day when war shall no longer be a 
dominant factor in the shaping of the world's history. 
But the civiHzation that bears the name of Christ has 
carried over old paganisms. As long as there are criminal 
nations, there must be armies for international poHce. 
And moreover, when the distinctive virtues of the soldier 
fade out in a nation's ideal of manhood, its Hfe breaks 
and rots. Learning, scientific discoveries, artistic cul- 
ture, a comfortable and luxurious civilization are no 
guaranties of the qualities, which alone can save society 
from decay and the state from that civic collapse that so 
often has been registered on the pages of history. 

The stone that marks a soldier's grave, one who has 
died for faith and fatherland, is only less sacred than the 
stone which men have hewn into an altar. Fitly it is 
placed in the porch of the altar. In our frail, human 
way, it repeats the sacrificial note in the undertone 
that gives to life its mystery and its grandeur. 



31 










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